Young Bucks on what makes AEW different.
The Wednesday Night Wars are in full swing and each week, AEW Dynamite and NXT deliver critically acclaimed shows. The action seen on Wednesdays is different than what fans typically see on Mondays and Fridays, which fans classify more as "sports entertainment" than "pro wrestling." Speaking to Monsters & Critics, the Young Bucks discussed what separates AEW from Raw and SmackDown.
"Right off, like right out of the gate for me, I don’t even watch Mondays. That’s a harder question for me to answer, but I can tell you what we are bringing that maybe, from what I’ve seen on Twitter, or people told me that the other show isn’t doing," said Matt Jackson. "We have great wrestling matches and, you know, you can watch four to five, even sometimes six matches on the show, and these matches are all going the distance. We’re always going to have a clear victor in these matches there’s no BS finishes. It’s great pro wrestling with a payoff conclusion. And I think it’s crazy because that’s what wrestling really is like, right? You know, historically back in the day, that’s what wrestling always was. And somehow it kind of became this really super soapy thing with these two finishes in every match. And really, it seems crazy, but it’s like we advertise something and then we go ahead and give the people what we advertise. It sounds nuts, right? But, so far, it’s working."
Matt continued, "But I think that, right out of the gate, that’s one thing we’re doing. And if I can speak for Nick and I — tag team wrestling. You know, I don’t know the last time tag team wrestling has been so prominent on the scene. When was the last time it was the main event on a television show? I don’t know. You know, we did this tournament that was really successful. A lot of people liked it, and it established a lot of teams and it just feels like tag team wrestling is back. I can’t really tell you how the tag wrestling’s been on Mondays and Fridays, but I can tell you that on our show, it’s definitely something that’s featured."
With many in AEW producing a television product for the first time, AEW President Tony Khan, Co-Executive Vice Presidents Young Bucks, Cody, and Kenny Omega are still learning the ropes on timing and hitting cues. During the interview, the Young Bucks revealed the recent in-ring promo between Chris Jericho and MJF went a little long, leading to time being cut from Pac vs. Hangman Page.
"We give them pointers of what direction their character’s going with and what type of feud they are going forward with and pretty much say, 'Hey, go hit a home run,'" said Nick Jackson. "Man, that was a money segment, I’ll tell you this — it’s hard to, like, know how long your promos going. That one in particular, the MJF and Jericho one, they went over the time that we gave them by like a few minutes. So, we actually had to cut some of Pac and Hangman’s match at the last minute. But that was such a money segment that no one told them to rush it because they were doing such a good job."
The segment with MJF and Jericho was widely praised by fans and viewed as a coming-out party for MJF, who went word for word with Jericho.
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